Even though The Brain Jonestown Massacre released an album just last year, group leader Anton Newcombe has decided to release a soundtrack for a movie that never existed.
According to NME, Newcombe was inspired to pay tribute to classic French film directors like Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut by composing music to a movie that neither man ever made. As Newcombe explains:
The album that you are about to hear is a soundtrack, my own creation, a tribute to great directors and filmmakers to an era that now seems to be behind us. Leaving the smart person to care to imagine that this art could now be in the shadow of its former glory. The interesting thing about this project is that the film does not exist either. Even so, I imagined and I realised its soundtrack… Now it’s your turn, you are the listener to imagine the film.
Newcombe, the creative engine that drives San Francisco psychedelic rockers the Brian Jonestown Massacre, intends to release the album Musique De Film Imaginé on April 27th of this year. Like the past few BJM recordings, Musique De Film Imaginé is going to be released on Newcombe’s own record label A Records. And, judging from his description, the album could sound both classic and provocatively original, even if its concept is slightly avant garde.
For the first track he’s released from the project, “Philadelphie Story” he’s concocted a heady brew of psychedelic organs and reverberated drum rolls for the gifted vocalist Soko to holler over the top off in lilting French phrases. Without veering too far into cliche, the sound is overwhelmingly cinematic, and would make for excellent texture during dialog as it subtly enhances the dramatic tension of a sweepingly emotional (albeit fictional) scene. It also doesn’t hurt the song’s Francophile cred that you can practically hear the Gauloises smoke rolling off of Soko’s vocal chords while her voice scales higher and higher over the grandiose arrangement.
Throughout the song, you’ll catch glimpses of autoharp, string quartet, french horn and trumpet in addition to more traditional rock instrumentation. Mixing such orchestral instruments with the snarling buzz of a distorted bass line can turn sour quickly, or come off gimmicky. However, Newcombe’s composition is airtight–avoiding pitfalls while it charts just a little new territory that is both sonically brave and beautifully arranged. It basically takes every sound that the Rolling Stone’s employed on Aftermath and rolls it into one magnificent miniature suite.
Newcombe and the rest of the Brian Jonestown Massacre must be on something of a hot streak lately, having released the album Revelation just last year. The band went through a similar creative high-water mark back in 2012 on the back of a great performance at the Austin Psyche Fest with their original lineup that exceed two hours. Shortly before that triumph, the band had also announced the release of their 2012 album Aufhaben that came out to similarly positive reviews.
While you wait for Musique De Film Imaginé‘s official release in April, listen to the first song “Philadelphie Story” below.
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